Water in Ground

[Bazile]

Most of the houses on our road on one side of the road , have a problem with water in the earth in the back yard
No one knows where this water is coming from - some say it might be an underground spring or something .

Anyway , before it does damage to the house we were wondering if a solution would be to excavate across the property , and build a concrete wall from surface level all the way down to the clay level .
Then direct the water that would build up behind the wall , by laying one of those pipes ( the type with holes on one side ) in the earth , with a connection to the drain .

Do you think that would work , or if not what would you suggest to solve the problem ?

I would appreciate the opinions of any builders or anyone else

[spudqueen]

Could it be a leaking water pipe? Maybe there is a water main, or drains even, that are leaking.

[buildersmate]

Has it always been like this? - maybe worse in the winter.
Has anything changed recently, like the major construction of banks for a new road, say, up to 100m away?

[4getmenot]

I would go through your building insurance and get a water main check and CCTV survey done on the drainage to see if there is a problem first.

[Bazile]

There has been no construction - and i dont think it is a broken drain

Speaking to the neighbours - this problem has been there for a long ,long time .

In fact i remember , a few years after i bought the house ( i wasn't aware of the problem when i bought it ) - my next door neighbour was having an extension at the back of the house , and the builders had to have a pump to get rid of the water as they were excavating for the foundations .

Recently , another neighbour also had to have a pump , when he was extending at the back of his property

[Bazile]

Do you think my suggestion would work ?

[jno]

houses in our neighbourhood also have water problems and we've just had drains laid in our lawn, just under the surface, to channel the water into a holding tank from where a pump will send it to the drain. We don't know if it will work yet but other people around have had the same thing done (by the same man) and they're happy with the results.

So that's similar to your solution but without the concrete wall. It might depend how deep the water is lying - in our case it seems not far below the surface; that's okay normally but when it rains it turns into a swamp, and that's what we're hoping to avoid.

[Bazile]

Thanks for your post jno .

What area of the UK , is your builder from - are you prepared to say ?
The reason I ask is to see if your builder is near where i live - and if so , could have a look at our problem

[jno]

Outskirts of north London, if that's any help. If you subscribe to Which magazine you could try their Which Local service, which lists people who do all sorts of stuff in your area, with recommendations (or not) by their customers.

[Bazile]

Thanks again - that's about 100 miles from me .

I will check out the which magazine in my library

[jno]

I'm not sure it's in the magazine; I've only used it online. But your library may have a subscription number you can use to sign up.

This is the page

http://local.which.co.uk/

[Bazile]

The Birmingham Central Library has an online access to the which magazine , for use by members of the public ( yes the library that Prince Charles referred to as a monstrous carbuncle )

I appreciate your help - and also the contribution of the other posters

[tamborine]

try this

http://www.5min.com/V...French-Drain-73410710